


love, hunt me down (i can't stand to be so dead behind the eyes)

by bottleredhead



Series: that time a tumblr user/anon prompted me [5]
Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, M/M, Tumblr Prompt, a bloody kiss, i seem to be writing a lot of those, not overly graphic descriptions of blood, riot gone wrong
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-13
Updated: 2013-08-13
Packaged: 2017-12-23 08:54:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,710
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/924374
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bottleredhead/pseuds/bottleredhead
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are bullet holes in his chest. One, two, three holes, letting blood pour down his front like a leaky faucet with rusted pipes. A wet laugh gurgles its way up his throat at how accurate the analogy is – for what is he but rusty on the inside? Rusty with disuse, broken beyond repair and now, finally, falling apart like an abandoned building. Dying, surprisingly, doesn’t hurt as much as he’d expected it to.</p>
            </blockquote>





	love, hunt me down (i can't stand to be so dead behind the eyes)

**Author's Note:**

> Anon on tumblr requested R hurt and dying but E/R snuck in. I did my best to break your hearts. Sorry (not sorry).
> 
> Un-beta'd! Also, I didn't read through this because I'm lazy. I'll probably come back to edit this later.

There are bullet holes in his chest. One, two, three holes, letting blood pour down his front like a leaky faucet with rusted pipes. A wet laugh gurgles its way up his throat at how accurate the analogy is – for what is he but rusty on the inside? Rusty with disuse, broken beyond repair and now, finally, falling apart like an abandoned building. Dying, surprisingly, doesn’t hurt as much as he’d expected it to. 

Or maybe that’s because of the adrenaline thundering through his veins and spilling out of the holes in his chest.

Belatedly, his hands rise to grasp at his chest in protection. It’s a useless action; his brain knows that, yet it brings him as small comfort to curl up on himself. The fire that is raging inside of him is distant as his eyes seek out his friends, gathered around him and yelling indecipherably.

“Grantaire? Grantaire can you hear me?” a voice calls, and it takes a moment for his glazed eyes to focus and sharpen the image of Combeferre, with bloodied hands pressed against his stomach, into something he understands. “Grantaire?”

He tries to stretch his mouth into a smile but a wave of blood breaks against his lips and spills over. It’s sticky and hot. “’Ferre?”

Combeferre’s eyes are glazed over, and his glasses seem foggy. Sluggishly, Grantaire tries to glance at the sky to see if it’s raining – it sure feels like it, what with how wet he is (with blood) – but a small voice in the back of his head informs him that those are tears in Combeferre’s eyes. Combeferre is crying over _him_ which just isn’t acceptable. 

“The ambulance is on its way, Grantaire, I need you to stay with me.” Then Combeferre’s attention is shifting to something just behind Grantaire’s shoulder – no, some _one_ , and Grantaire realises that he’s being propped up, his back against someone’s chest, and gentle hands are stroking his sweaty hair away from his forehead.

And oh, that’s right, he’d fallen backwards against Enjolras when he jumped in front of the incoming bullets. He spares a moment to enjoy the feel of Enjolras pressed intimately against him, before his brain catches up and realises the outcome of saving Enjolras.

“’M I dyin’?” Grantaire slurs. His mouth is refusing to properly form the words, and he’d be embarrassed if it wasn’t for the fact that his friends have seen him shitfaced-drunk many times before.

Enjolras’ hands pause in their ministrations and tense slightly, the few ink-black strands caught between his fingers stretching taut. The pinpricks of pain in his scalp spark a modicum of lucidity, and the full weight of what he’s done comes slamming into him, along with the sharp and burning pain in his gut, his ribs, underneath his clavicle and so, so close to his heart.

The pain intensifies when Enjolras shifts behind him, moving so that his knees straddle Grantaire’s hips, arms wrapping around Grantaire, a mirror image of Grantaire’s depraved fantasies gone terribly, horribly wrong. They’re face to face now, and Grantaire can see the sweat beading at Enjolras’ temples, gleaming blond curls sticking to the perspiration. “Listen to me Grantaire: you’re not going to die,” Enjolras hisses, voice low as if that would keep the broken edges hidden. His voice breaks slightly as he continues, “you’re not going to die, not today.”

Grantaire can’t help but raise a bloody hand to stroke the blond curls he’s dreamt of running his fingers through one too many times before. He’s dying; he can’t be faulted for wanting to touch his beloved, even in this most innocent way. “But I am,” he murmurs, voice wet with blood and unshed tears of pain.

Enjolras’ eyes, so often compared by Grantaire to shards of ice in colour and emotional capacity, are ablaze with some foreign emotion. “Do you remember,” he asks in a broken tone, “when you made me watch the entire first season of Game of Thrones with you? Do you remember when the guards came for Aria?” When it seems like Grantaire isn’t going to answer, Enjolras shakes him slightly. “Do you remember what we say to the Lord of Death, Grantaire?”

“Enjolras-”

“What do we say to the Lord of Death?” There’s a hysterical note to Enjolras’ voice now.

Grantaire coughs a little, blood spurting from his open mouth. “Not. Today.”

The stabbing sensation in his stomach worsens with each breath, an impossible agony that makes him wish for death to hasten and take him, lest he stays forever in this state of limbo, not fully alive yet not dead either. He’d rather be buried six feet underneath dirt than endure this horrid ache any longer. 

He doesn’t realise he’s said all of that out loud until tears form in the corner of Enjolras’ eyes. “Don’t. Cry. I thought you’d be-” he breaks off to cough, splattering the air with droplets of blood “-happy. To see me gone.”

“Don’t,” Enjolras growls, tightening his arms minutely around Grantaire, seemingly trying not to put him in any more discomfort. “This is not a joking matter, Grantaire. Be serious.”

Grantaire can’t help it. He grins, both hands framing Enjolras’ face as he murmurs “ _I am wild_ ,” and presses his reddened lips lightly against Enjolras’ soft ones. It is a reiteration of an old and tired argument of theirs, and he knows Enjolras remembers when Enjolras’ hot tears dampen his own cheeks from where they fall forwards on to him. When he pulls back, Enjolras’ lips are stained a dark red, as though he’s been sipping holy wine from a hallowed chalice. Two spots of colours high on his cheeks and eyes glistening wetly, Enjolras looks like a broken boy soldier watching his comrade die in the barracks.

“Listen to me, Apollo,” Grantaire says, because he has to get this out, he has to make Enjolras _understand_. “I am dying. I have accepted the fact. You should too.”

“No,” is Enjolras’ vehement reply, yet Grantaire can see the understanding taking form in Enjolras’ eyes. It looks as though Enjolras is steeling himself for the inevitable, and Grantaire is glad. He’s not delusional; he knows that Enjolras won’t mope around after Grantaire passes away, knows that Enjolras won’t mourn for him as though he was in love with him. But Enjolras _will_ definitely blame himself for Grantaire’s death, and Grantaire can’t let him do that. He jumped in front of the bullets to save Enjolras of his own volition.

The filter between his brain and mouth, usually faulty, seems to have fallen completely through the moment he was shot (he was shot! With actual bullets! From actual guns!), because he’s saying all of this outloud, spitting the words out coated with coagulated blood.

Anger draws itself into the lines around Enjolras’ mouth before bleeding out before it has a moment to really build, replaced by a deep sadness that visibly carves itself into every slope of Enjolras’ face. “You shouldn’t have done that. You shouldn’t – I – thank you.”

There is a lot of emotion in those two words, as though Enjolras is trying to express more than gratitude in eight letters. The warm sound floods Grantaire, stoppering the flow of hurt from the three holes in his chest with the sense of comfort and _love_. He smiles absently. “I would do it all over again, Apollo. I believed, you know. In you.”

“You don’t believe in anything,” Enjolras laughs wetly, the words seeming to stick in his throat. 

“I believe in you,” Grantaire murmurs. Then his eyelashes are fluttering shut, the pain in his chest fading away so it’s nothing more than a background buzz. There is no white light – figures, really, that Hollywood lied about that – but there is an all-encompassing darkness. It’s velvety and soft, and Grantaire can’t resist falling into its arms, so dissimilar yet not from Enjolras’ warmth wrapped around him.

*

Enjolras watches in silent horror as Grantaire’s eyes drift closed, purple lids sealing over the bluest blue he’s ever seen. The thumb that’s been rubbing lightly between his brows slips away as Grantaire’s hands fall from his face, limp. The tension in Grantaire’s shoulders eases as his whole body slumps in Enjolras’ hold, head lolling backwards and curls swinging in the soft breeze.

“Grantaire?”

No response.

“Grantaire, please, wake up.”

Once again, there is no response.

He calls Grantaire’s name a few times, to no avail, and then Combeferre is there, gently easing Grantaire’s body out of his arms and on to the dirty asphalt stained with the artist’s blood. 

“He’s gone, Enjolras,” Combeferre quietly says, pulling Enjolras back from his protective slouch over Grantaire’s body. “There’s nothing you can do for him.”

A chilling numbness spreads through his chest even as Combeferre’s words ring true. Dazedly, he raises his eyes to find the rest of their friends standing a little ways away. They’re crying, all of them, some silently and some wailing, but each of their grief-stricken faces is shiny with tears. Enjolras looks back at Combeferre, but his gaze inevitably returns to Grantaire.

“He said he believed in me.” There is blood on Grantaire’s lips, darkening their natural redness into an impossible bloom of colour. Grantaire’s face is peaceful-looking in repose, none of the haunted looks he’d worn in life painted over the pale features. If Enjolras didn’t know any better, he would think that Grantaire is passed out after consuming too much wine.

Combeferre’s voice is soft, as though he’s talking to an easily spooked animal. “I know, Enjolras. He always believed in you. He loved you.”

The use of past tense isn’t lost on Enjolras, but he is more preoccupied with Combeferre’s words. “He- he loved me?”

Combeferre smiles slightly at Enjolras, but it is a sad little thing. “Come on, Enjolras. The ambulance has arrived, they need to take the body.”

As Enjolras and Combeferre move to stand with the rest of Les Amis, the paramedics check for a nonexistent pulse, calling for a gurney when they can’t find one. Efficiently, they slip Grantaire’s body into a black bag, and the sound of the zipper sliding shut is impossibly loud in the near silence.

It doesn’t hide the sound of Enjolras’ heart shattering into a hundred irreparable pieces.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed! Comments and kudos are very welcome. :)
> 
> Find me at enjolraspermitsit.tumblr.com


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